Gilpin's Space Page 3

  I’m guilty. I did steal Cupid’s Arrow. But dear Aunt Laure, like a good pack rat I’ve left you something in place of it. Can you guess? Of course you can’t, though I suppose Franz has been doing his damnedest.

  What have I left you?

  Madame, I have left you a hot potato.

  I have left you a ticket to the stars.

  And to you, and you, and you, and you and you, and you too, I leave

  My love,

  Saul Gilpin

  Captain, Starship

  Cupid’s Arrow

  PS: You now have full instructions, in words and drawings any intelligent child can understand, as to how to build it. If you follow them, you will find out what it is. It will not shift you into another universe, because God made only this one (or so He told me). But He made it with an infinite number of states or aspects. Into one of these my device will plunge you. The silly rules of physics as we know them will not apply to you. When the device is in its drive modes—it has others—you will not have to suffer the torments of acceleration. You will not, in your journeyings, have to wait on sluggard light.

  God love you, gentles all!

  (signed again) Gentle Saul

  PPS: Now don’t forget—I want you to start building right away, before the IPP devours you. However, to make that a bit less likely, I have already built you one extra drive, complete with its computers and controls. Follow directions and your starship will be set to go.

  And, dear hearts, keep it that way. Provision it. Put aboard everything I’ve thought of and anything else you can find room for. You may have to take off as fast as I did.

  Laure put the letter down. What does one say when a door too vast, a door always safely welded shut, is suddenly thrown wide to show the absolutely unbelievable? In a very low voice, finally, she spoke. “If what Saul tells us here is true, and I’m sure it is, perhaps his hot potato will prove too hot to handle. Only science-fiction writers, only a very few far-out scientists, have dared to dream of starflight as actually attainable, and even they have thought in terms of decades, of centuries, for research, of uncounted billions for development. Now suddenly we are given it—simple, cheap, instantly available. Our world’s a bomb—a bomb with as many fuses as there are crazy little nations, as many as our savage dictators, our corrupt politicians, our power-hungry plotters, manipulators, terrorists! How would these people see our starship? As a weapon only, a secret to be seized at any cost. But there’d be many, many others who’d look on us as saviors, helping them escape the dread they live with to face less certain perils. Very well, what shall we do with it?”

  “My God!” Dan said, more to himself than to the rest of us. “My God! Brought to us by a Boy Scout!”

  “There’s one thing Saul didn’t mention,” Franz put in. “Just where’s that extra drive he said he’s made?”

  Laure smiled at him. “Perhaps another Boy Scout will come along with it.”

  She undid the package, rolled its ribbon neatly, took out three fat manila envelopes. One was addressed to her, one to Franz, and one to me.

  “What shall we do with it?” she asked again.

  I thought of what would happen if it fell into the hands of Good Ol’ Breck and those even darker figures who pulled his strings, or of the grim old men inside the Kremlin.

  Everyone, I think, spoke at once, saying the same thing in different ways; and Laure listened till we had finished.

  “We are agreed, then? They mustn’t have it?”

  I spoke for all of us. “We’re all agreed. Nothing we’ve learned tonight will be told to anyone not now in this room.” Coolly, penetratingly, Laure regarded all their faces. “I’m satisfied of that. But still we must decide what use we’ll make of it. Let’s all consider it, knowing that we will have to plan swiftly, and act more swiftly still.” Astoundingly, she smiled. “And let us pray that what we do is right. And let us pray for Saul and Lillian, and Polly Esther and her lad, whoever he may be, and for Cupids Arrow. And now—let’s have some birthday cake. Then we’ll have coffee and liqueurs.”

  Thus she shunted us back into reality—a reality that now seemed all the more unreal, with its birthday icing of affection and friendship and festivity. We ate our cake, and sipped our demitasses and savored our liqueurs, realizing that what had overwhelmed us was much too dangerous—yes, and much too sacred—to be discussed even among ourselves, not then. Only Franz had been unable to conform. He picked up his liqueur and, muttering an apology, retreated to a comer of the room to open his envelope. I could see him from my place at the table, the changing expression On his face showing amazement, disbelief, grudging acceptance, puzzled annoyance, wonderment. He was oblivious to everything and everyone around him. Once in a while, he would make small grumbling noises, or gasp in astonishment.

  The rest of us went on with our charade for half an hour, an hour, until the time came to break up the party. Dan and Rhoda were the first to leave, and Laure walked them to the door. I could tell that Janet was just waiting for me to give the word, but before I could, Laure asked her if she’d mind going to the kitchen and saying a word or two to Mrs. Rasmussen and Keithy. “They’re very fond of you,” she told her, smiling.

  Then, with Janet gone, she turned to me. “Geoffrey, we’re going to have to act as rapidly as possible. I mean decisions.” She called to Franz, jarring him out of his other-world of physics. “Franz, how does it look to you? Have you any idea how it works?”

  Franz came over to sit down next to us. “How does it work? Mrs. Endicott, I have no idea. If I hadn’t seen Saul’s tests and heard how Cupids Arrow dissolved before God and everyone—well, I would’ve said Saul had flipped, that he simply had concocted a topologist’s nightmare of a nothing-gadget. It has metal elements; it has ceramic elements; it has what look like massive, twisted monofilaments going nowhere; it seems to have no moving parts, though there are some that look as thought they could move if they wanted to. Yet everything in it is made of common stuff, stuff easily found and easily fabricated. It has me stumped. I have no takeoff point. None. But Saul is right. Each part, if it’s subcontracted, looks as if it could be part of almost anything—a paper mill, a cotton gin, you name it. And every unit, following his directions, shouldn’t cost more than in the low six figures. That’s only a quick guess, of course, but I’d bet I’m not too far off. The computer equipment would be extra.”

  “Who do you think should get it?” Laure asked, addressing both of us.

  “We should,” I told her. “But how could we protect it?”

  “The whole world should,” Franz said. “That’s the safest way.”

  “You’re both right,” she answered. “We ought to have it because Saul produced it for us, but there would be no way for us to keep it secret, even if we died trying—which I suspect we would. And the whole world should have it, because the whole world needs it desperately, and we could sell it to them— except that we’d not be allowed to. Therefore there’s only one thing we can do—” She broke off, questioning us with her eyes. “We can give it to the world, for free, but not until we ourselves have built one, and tested it, and can safely say, ’This is our gift to you. It will take you to new worlds. It will dash you into undreamed-of dangers. But it will never injure you itself.’ Perhaps we can keep it secret long enough for that.”

  I nodded. She was right. I could see that Franz was also in agreement. He said, “Yes. If you were to publish it—or even try to publish it—just as it stands, you’d be destroyed, and Lord only knows what’d become of it.”

  Laure reached out to us. She put one hand over one of mine, and one on his. “Our time is short. The election is only two months off, and it will give them both Houses of the Congress. Their power will be absolute, and it’ll be too late for us. Tomorrow I’ll announce that I am giving up competing where major vessels are concerned, that Underseas is going to stick to small special-purpose craft. I’ll tell the media I know when I’m licked. I’ll even hint that eventually I
may sell out completely. It’ll be plausible—I’ll really scream my outrage at what’s been done to us. It’ll be a cover-up for new activities and changes around the yard. The first order of business, naturally, will be to And that drive and get it installed aboard either Owl or Pussycat. That’ll be pretty much up to Franz. But he’s also going to have to recruit one or two helpers who won’t be frightened by the thought of starships. We’ll need steady, solid men—and women—but with imagination, the kind of people who’d have jumped at the chance to sail to the Indies with Columbus, or round the world with Drake, or down into the sea’s dark depths with Captain Nemo. You’ll find lots of them who are already interested—members of the L-5 Society, for example. I doubt if we’ll ever be able to set up actual manufacturing ourselves, but if there’s time, we’ll try. But we’re going to be busy, busy, busy from now on.”

  4

  We took Franz Andradi home with us, more so that he and I could have a chance to talk than anything else. 1 could see that he wasn’t quite his usual effervescent self, and when we’d settled down over a round of drinks it all came spilling out. Hadn’t Saul been taking a hell of a chance, making all those copies and passing them around like that? And where the hell had he hidden the extra drive? And now that we’d had a chance to think about it, weren’t we really taking on a terrible responsibility, making the decision to turn the human race loose on the Galaxy—to say nothing of the dangers to the race itself?

  “Saul,” I told him, “isn’t an undercover, Frederick Forsyth type. Though he’s supposed to have had a high clearance somewhere along the line, he isn’t even what you could call a security type. He’s eccentric, to put it mildly. But we must admit he’s not done too badly up to now. Would you have thought up that pretty little caper with the Boy Scout? Would I? We’ll protect our copies. Perhaps Laure’s and mine can be reduced to microdots, but you’ll need yours to work with. We’ll see tomorrow. Anyhow—” I grinned as cheerfully as I could, “—we still aren’t helpless. The Big Purge won’t come till the next election. There’s only one thing that really worries me—”

  Then I told him about Whalen Borg. “Right now, we don’t really know how much clout he has, or what facilities. I’m going to see what I can leam from Garvey, in Navlntel—after all, he just about owes the admiral his career.”

  Janet, tired now, made us another round and said good night, telling me not to be too long.

  “And what about the destiny of the human race?” Franz asked. “Are we the people to decide?” He grinned, twisting his moustache savagely. “Naturally, I’m sure we are but some folks might wonder.”

  “What has the race done to its destiny already?” I asked. “Breeding itself out of existence, eating itself out of existence, bleeding the precious earth that nourished it, burning up irreplaceable metals, minerals, petrochemicals, fouling the air, fouling the lakes and seas? And if we don’t make the decision, now that we have the power, who will? Good Ol’ Breck and his puppeteers? The executioners in the Kremlin? Some hideous murdering little dictator in what Eleanor Roosevelt would have called an emerging country, sucking up to both sides for weaponry?”

  “’Ear! ’Ear!” Franz cried, exuberant again.

  “And as for the perils of the planets, and the dangers of vasty space—well, they shouldn’t deter us any more than the dangers of the deep deterred those Chinese navigators who crossed over to the coast of South America, or the Vikings who made their icy way to Vinland, or St. Brendan in his boat of skins. They, too, faced the unknown—unknown lands, unknown seas and spaces, unknown beings, unknown diseases. And they didn’t have instant computer analysis of any and every antagonistic chemical and hostile organism. Nor did they have computer-enhanced syntheses of almost instant agents to counter any one of them. Back in the eighties, I’d have said no myself. But not now. The human race has the right to risk its lives, the right to venture freely, the right to escape the suicide of the world!”

  “You should’ve been half-Magyar, just like me!” cried Franz admiringly. “I drink to you. Perhaps we can make you an honorary one.”

  “That would be nice,” I told him; and a few minutes later I saw him off to bed, thinking that at least I had been able to cheer him up a little bit.

  I myself was by no means as certain as I had sounded. I sat down and poured myself a double brandy. I had been Navy all my adult life—never doubting where my duty lay. And yet the Constitution of the United States—that Constitution I had sworn to defend against all enemies domestic and foreign—was already almost a dead letter; after the next election it would have no more weight or substance than a pricked balloon. And yet—I sat there, wondering how many Reichswehr officers had thought such thoughts when Hitler first took power, how many Austrian officers had thought them at the Anschluss. I picked up the envelope Saul had marked for me.

  At the very top was a letter addressed, in Saul’s erratic hand, to Commodore Cormoc. I opened it.

  Dear Commodore, I know you’re not a commodore, and you know you’re not a commodore, because the Navy hasn’t had the sense to retain that splendid, picturesque, historic rank. But I will confer the title on you because I love you (fraternally, in case some nasty minded busybody should see this letter).

  Very well, beloved brother, if you’re doing what I strongly suspect you are, wrestling with your commodorish (commodorian?) conscience, let Gentle Saul offer you good advice:

  Don’t.

  Geoff, I have made enough copies of my work to ensure that it will eventually be disseminated to the entire world whether Laure publishes or not. So giving a set to You-know-who would only do our poor old world much harm. All they will see in my device will be a superweapon, and if they had the wit and will and decency to use it decisively to set up a civilized world order—if, instead of Good 01’ Breck, their leader were Winston Churchill or even Napoleon Bonaparte—then I myself would give it to them with my blessings.

  But, Geoff, they aren’t. It would be the “secret of the atom bomb” all over again—only how much worse?

  I know what Franz believes. I’m sure’ that Auntie Laure agrees with him and me. And I’m betting that you will, too. So here’s your set of plans for Gilpin’s Galactic Star-Drive.

  Lovingly,

  Saul

  PS: I’ve sold Franz my old Dodge van, but he doesn’t know it yet. It’s in its usual spot back of the machine shop, where you untidy people keep things like broken-down forklifts. The papers are all dated six weeks ago, and he’s just been too busy to change the registration, in case anybody asks. I told Keithy to leave them with Mrs. Rasmussen—also the keys.

  I frowned, puzzled. Saul was bound to do things in a Saulish way, but—

  Then, abruptly, I understood, and I knew where we would find the extra drive Saul had made for us.

  I put Saul’s papers back into their envelope—1 wouldn’t have understood them anyway—and for another half-hour I sat there weighing and balancing the odds. Even if we could keep it secret, the elections would be our absolute cutoff date, with perhaps a breathless week or two afterward—the time the IPP might need to make sure all heads had rolled. Meanwhile, we still could count on friends—patriotic and powerful friends—both in the Pentagon and in the Congress. We probably could still count, if not on the friendship, at least on the dispassionate honesty of some of the high courts. If our luck held.

  When Janet, who had been wakeful waiting for me, came in and told me that I was much too tired to think, I kissed her and let her lead me off to, bed; and, when I tried to tell her what was in my mind, she shushed me with a finger on my lips, and smiled, and I realized that she knew as well as I. Just before she turned out the light, she gave me an envelope and two keys on a ring. “From Mrs. Rasmussen,” she told me. “She seemed to think you’d be expecting them.”

  I drove Franz down to the yard after an early breakfast during which I broke the news to him about the van. It was a lovely day, cool and clear, unsullied by smog and with the fresh smell of
the sea in the air. On the way to the parking lot, we glanced at Owl and Pussycat, now almost ready for their sea-trials, moored securely to their pier with only the eerie space where Cupid’s Arrow had once been between them. All three had been designed for maritime archaeology and salvage, for not-too-deep exploration, for search and rescue, but though basically they were sister-ships, each had her minor variations. Owl was conspicuous for her manipulators—great lobster daw-like servos with which she could cut into steel deck-plating or tear an ancient oaken hull apart to pilfer a single coin from whatever treasure it contained. They fascinated Dan Kellett, who several times had asked permission to try them out, and had always come ashore grinning happily and saying they made him feel like a super sea monster. Owl also had pressure hatches which could give birth to armored divers and draw them in again.

  With more observation ports in her ship-wide control tower than either of her sisters, she was a many-eyed creature which could see everything—around, before, behind.

  Now I saw her, not on the ocean floor, but on the strange surface of an unknown world, extruding instruments to test its atmosphere, fingers to seize its life forms for examination—those that didn’t seem too likely to seize back—and finally, men to prove its hospitality or enmity. I saw her swimming, swift and solitary, in deep space, the stars instead of starfish in her eyes.

  That was when I first understood that, inevitably, some of us were going to become astronauts—true astronauts. To Franz I said, “We’re going to have to start picking crews—one to start with. Probably for Owl.”